'It's like a personal affront to their manhood if you bluff them out of a pot'

It's macho, aggressive and adrenalin-pumping, but the traditionally masculine world of poker is now seeing an increasing number of women drawn to its tables. As the game has become more and more fashionable in recent years, the percentage of female players taking part in live games has inched up to 5% (from a minuscule 1%). And online, with the lure of anonymity, cheap stakes and easy access, the figures are even higher. Latest YouGov research shows women now make up 30-40% of internet players.

"The atmosphere in most casino poker games is frosty, bordering on hostile, which can be a real turn-off for many women," says Conrad Brunner from PokerStars.com, one of the UK's largest online poker companies. Online games are still aggressive but players are protected from a lot of the intimidatory, death-staring tactics that are used face to face, and they don't have to brave their local casino.

"The poker world has changed phenomenally," says Lucy Rokach, the UK's top female player. "The money now available to be won is life-changing. You've got sponsors offering you deals, celebrity players as in other sports and there are more women, which makes for a much pleasanter atmosphere."

Poker is on a roll. Cheap $1 tournaments with million-dollar cash prizes are proving so tempting that poker has become our fastest-growing hobby, while online-to-live success stories are doing their bit to sell the rags-to-riches dream. Surprisingly the UK provides 80% of Europe's poker, while Ladbrokes.com, which draws in around 350,000 players per hour, estimates that women accounted for 20% of its players last year. So far, there's no evidence to suggest that either sex is more susceptible to the game's more dangerous, addictive qualities. But one thing's for sure: with nearly 300 poker websites to choose from, more than 1.5 million regular players, and nearly £100,000m being wagered every day, there's always a game to be had.

When Rokach, 56, first started playing poker 18 years ago it took her just four months to lose everything. She was forced to remortgage her house and borrow money, but she carried on regardless. "I perceived it as a challenge. I didn't like losing and I thought, 'Well, it can't be that hard'." Now known as Lucy "Golden Ovaries" Rokach she is widely acknowledged to be the best female player in the UK.

"My first nickname was Spring Lamb - because I was a lamb at the sacrificial altar [in a highly confrontational, male-dominated world], then Golden Ovaries. I was playing a cash game with a friend about 12 years ago and I kept beating him with these wanky little cards and he had aces. He was about to say golden bollocks, stopped himself and said, 'Mmm, golden ovaries'."

Rokach, from Stoke-on-Trent, has had her share of testosterone-laden matches over the years, although she says the presence of more women is improving the game's table manners. "I've had face-to-face arguments several times with fellas I know would have liked to have hit me, but I've stood my ground and they realised it was a no-win situation for them."

Her style, she says, is "aggressive and fast", though she adds: "It's got to be controlled aggression. There's no point in being all in, all in, all in. That's not aggression, that's kamikaze."

Aggression is crucial to poker players. And women are not afraid to show it. Take Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier, who loves the terror-inducing nickname given to her by poker commentator Mike Sexton. You have to be pretty formidable to earn yourself a nickname in this world, and anything that adds to her opponents' fear is fine by her.

"I have a very aggressive style of playing, and that disturbs people. When we draw seats for a tournament most are relieved to see they are not on my table, because when I play live, most of the time I'm the most aggressive player at the table."

Mercier, 29, has put time and effort into becoming more aggressive at the table over the years: eyeballing opponents, staring them down and generally unnerving them so much that they throw in their hand.

This petite, 5ft-2in French Canadian says her appearance also works in her favour as some male players underestimate her bite. And so ruffled are they at the thought of being beaten by her, they make rash moves that leave her raking in all their chips.

Gary Jones, poker pro and commentator at the British Poker Open, says that anyone who underestimates a woman's ability to be aggressive does so at their peril.

"Women's poker is moving on. They are no longer being perceived as the timid calling station they might have been a few years ago. If you'd seen a woman at your table then you'd have thought, 'Ay, ay, this is going to be easy chips'. That's no longer the case. There are some real forces out there. Nowadays you see a woman at the table and you give her the full respect that she deserves."

The one thing women don't tend to bring to the table, says Jones, is their ego. "So many poker players play off the back that it's almost a personal affront to their manhood if you bluff them out of a pot. I don't think a woman's like that. When she comes to the table she's there to play and she's there to win. She doesn't care if you bluff her out as long as she plays a good game. A bloke on the other hand can take it very personally. It's a bit like driving or having sex, it's one of those things that men aren't prepared to admit they're bad at."

Television, as Jones points out, gave poker the leg up it needed to break into mainstream consciousness. Channel 4's decision to televise the World Poker Tournament in 2001, not only demystified the game but made it both sexy and compulsive as viewers followed the tactics, winning hands and audacious bluffs from a camera positioned under a glass-topped table.

Mel Lofthouse, 34, from Slough, was hooked from watching it on TV. She now works live tournaments, has her own poker site and a home game every Friday - both of which she runs with her poker-playing partner. She also squeezes in five hours of online play a day around a full-time job and family life, heading to bed about 2am every morning. The best thing, she says, about playing online is that she can sit her 10-month-old baby on her knee. "I don't need to get a babysitter and he loves it - bashing away at the keyboards. One time he typed ggggxxxxkkk to the table and entered it and I had to say, 'Oops, sorry that's my son.' "

A big help is to land a sponsorship deal. Mercier - a law graduate who has played poker since the age of four - has been snapped up by PokerStars.com, who now front the money for her tournament entrance fees (up to €25,000). After that, though, she's on her own: one month she might win £40,000, stay in the best hotels and fly business class, then the next three months, nothing. But, she says, "I have nothing to lose, as I have nothing anyway."

Mercier lives out of a suitcase, moving from hotel to hotel - staying in 40 different hotels in 20 different countries in the past year - going to bed anytime between 3am and 7am, leaving little time for anything more personal than short-term affairs. When not playing live, she plays a tournament a day as practice. "It's like a sport - not physically, but it's a discipline." And she even dreams about poker - setting herself a poker problem to mull over while she sleeps, then writing down the results in the morning.

Xuyen "Bad Girl" Pham is another formidable player, whose game has earned her both a nickname and a much sought-after sponsorship deal. As one of Xuyen's opponents wrote: "Across the table from me is a woman wearing a T-shirt that reads: 'Pham "Badgirl" Xuyen [sic], Pot Limit Hold 'Em World Champion, Is Proudly Sponsored By William Hill Bookmakers.' This is not a T-shirt one ideally wants to see across the poker table."

"I am a housewife. I have three kids I have to look after," says Pham. Yet with just two years of professional poker-playing under her belt, she scooped the World Poker Championship last year, pocketing €250,000. When not playing live, Pham, 36, from Hemel Hempstead, plays online from 8pm to 5 or 6am, then gets up to do the school run before heading off to bed.

Pham's chief ambition now is to win the prestigious World Series diamond bracelet - poker's equivalent to the World Cup - hideously ugly to look at but effective at putting the fear of God into other players. And as for treating herself when her winnings roll in, she says: "I can't drive, so I can't buy cars. I don't have holidays as I travel so much with poker and go back to Vietnam every two years to see my parents, so I buy diamonds set in white gold. They call me the diamond collector."

· The British Poker Open final takes place today and will be broadcast live by the Poker Channel.